December 3rd

08:12 OST

I stared blankly at the gray-skinned turian that was currently trying to show my team how to perform proper maintenance on weaponry. He'd lost me quite a while ago, and he spoke at a rate that would make a salarian dizzy.

We were in the maintenance bay, a very large room filled to the brim with crates upon crates of weapons, armor, mods, mechs, ammunition blocks, explosive ordinance and I was sure a dozen other things that could be used to kill people. The crates were pushed up against the walls, leaving a wide open space for rows of tables, where various things were laid out and in several states of disassembly. There was another team at a different table sorting through what looked like mods. The whole place smelt like melted plastic and ozone, not very enjoyable but ignorable. The lighting was pleasant in my opinion, but I'm sure other humans were probably annoyed with how dim it was. It was uncomfortably cold, however, and I had to suppress a shiver as I tried to refocus on the turian who had offered to tutor us on maintenance.

"…and then you just reattach the last mechanism here, and the weapon is reassembled. Easy, right?" The gray turian looked back up at us, apparently expecting the team of velites to understand his fast-paced lecture. I turned and looked at my teammates. Vilnius was nodding, as though he'd understood completely. He was obviously in his element. Brek's expression was that of utter disinterest. Hyrn was blinking rapidly, looking as lost as I felt, and Javern had a small scowl on his face. I knew he hadn't followed the turian either, I saw him staring off into space earlier, and he was likely covering it up with hostility.

The turian stared, and then sighed. "Alright, you- uhh, Vilnius, go start looking over those rifles. You four, watch again closely. To start, you put pressure…"

12:39 OST

Fuck, this place is big! Where the hell am I?

After our first shift on duty rotations, the team had split up to eat and had agreed to meet back up outside of the maintenance bay at 13:00. I hadn't felt very hungry and had instead decided to explore, but inevitably got lost.

I walked down another metallic-grey hallway, passing by two batarians and an asari in Trooper armor. I'd been slightly surprised to learn that we wouldn't be getting the standard blue armor until we made principes, but it made sense. Wouldn't want to waste equipment on someone if you didn't know they'd live to see another week. I almost stopped them to ask for directions, but with the exception of Taren nearly every batarian I had ever met went out of their way to be unhelpful solely because of my race.

At the end of the hallway was a door to a room almost as big as the maintenance bay. Instead of crates, however, there were tables and benches spread out everywhere and there was a veritable sea of people, almost all of them in blue armor. It was incredibly noisy, with loud conversation, music, and what might have been a movie all going on at once. People were clustered into groups of approximately seven or eight, with a few groups attached to other groups to make a super-group. The smell of foreign food was overwhelming, and the room felt uncomfortably hot. If I had to hazard a guess, I had stumbled into the rec room.

I very nearly ran away. There was just so much noise and smells and people and I just wanted to be somewhere else. But if I didn't get directions then I'd probably be wandering around the damn building for another hour. I slid into the room and rested against the wall, letting the door close behind me. I closed my eyes and took deep, even breaths. Once I felt acclimated enough, I looked around for someone I could approach. It didn't take me very long to spot a lone asari leaning against a table and looking at her omni-tool. I took the least invasive route to her, and by the time I reached her she had already seen me, looking up as I approached. She was a deep, royal blue with wavy indigo facial markings and dark blue eyes. She cut me off before I could speak.

"You're one of the new velites, aren't you? Dyric mentioned you guys. I'm Eyria, team 32. We're in the same platoon." Her voice was deeper than most of the asari I'd met. Her eyes went to the left side of my face. "Nice scar."

I involuntarily reached up to touch my ear. The top portion of my ear was gone; the bullet had done so much damage that it had to be removed. The lower half was still intact, despite my initial diagnosis. Across my left cheek was a graze slightly deeper than the one on my shoulder. The sight of my mangled ear and scarred face was jarring to say the least, and I'd begun to avoid reflective surfaces. I grunted in a non-committal fashion as I traced the edge of the removed tissue with a gloved finger.

She turned her attention away from my ear, and I let my hand fall. "What do you need?"

Did she say she was in team 32? We haven't been assigned a number as far as I know… I need directions first. I'll ask someone else later.

"Can you tell me where the maintenance bay is?"

December 4th

08:02 OST

The medical bay was large and immaculately clean. There were several rows of bleach-white cots in the back and a plethora of medical equipment set up towards the front that for the life of me I couldn't understand. Bright florescent lighting bounced off the shiny metal machines. There were about a dozen people on the cots, but most of them appeared to be asleep at the moment besides a turian and a salarian who were watching some show from a screen on the back wall. A human guy was fiddling with one of the machines next to the salarian's cot, while two other people unpacked some crates in a far corner and another one checked up on the sleeping patients. In the front half of the room was a batarian working at a terminal. He got up as we walked in and grabbed a pile of datapads.

"Here." He thrust a datapad into each of our hands. "Read this. You're useless to me until you can understand everything in that text." Once each of us had one, the tan-colored batarian returned to his terminal. Javern cast a glance at Hyrn, Vilnius and I before he and Brek walked off to sit down together. Vilnius was already reading the required material and didn't acknowledge any of us. I met Hyrn's eyes, who just blinked and fidgeted with the datapad in his hands. I offered him a brief smile, which he returned after a few seconds, before I turned and found a bench to sit on. My salarian teammate joined me. I activated the datapad and it revealed itself to be some sort of beginner's manual for procedure in a medical facility.

Something niggled in the back of my mind for a bit. I shouldn't be able to read this… why, what- oh, no visual translator, then how-

I mulled over the puzzle for a bit until something occurred to me. I pulled up my omni-tool and searched for any running processes. Sure enough, it had linked with the datapad and switched its language settings to English when I turned it on.

I suppose that makes sense. It would be annoying and time-consuming to have to alter the language settings every time you picked up a datapad that someone with a different language had used.

Something spiked in my memory and I remembered talking to Taren about his book a few days ago. I mentally facepalmed for not noticing the language change at the time. I returned my attention to the datapad, which proved to be an excruciatingly dry but educational read on how to not contaminate the medical equipment.

December 5th

09:28 OST

I grumbled as I attacked the spot in front of me with the stiff-bristled brush in my hand, giving it another spray of the cleaning agent with the other hand.

The rust on the mech in front of me was stubborn as hell. I'd been scrubbing this particular one for half an hour, and I had made little progress. Vilnius and Brek had already completely cleaned two mechs in that time, though Javern was evidently as inept at this as I was because he was still on his second one of the day. Hyrn was working on the mech next to me, seemingly lacking his usual unstable energy. I was a little concerned about him.

I paused momentarily in my chore. "So, ah… how are you?" I did my best to keep my tone casual.

Hyrn hesitated for a second before answering in a defensive tone. "I-I'm f-fine."

I glanced at the salarian from the corner of my eye. I was not knowledgeable in salarian biology by any means, but he hadn't been that grey or thin when I first met him.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

But I remembered how much it bothered me when Lera told me I wasn't fine, and I felt the wave of tiredness caused by waking up from a nightmare after only two hours of sleep the night before. So after a moment, I merely said, "Okay, then." I resumed scrubbing my mech with vigor.

Hyrn cast me a relieved look before returning to his task. A few minutes later, he spoke up. "S-So… h-how are y-you?"

I stopped and thought about how best to answer that. I was getting better. I still had nightmares but they were fewer and less intense. I didn't feel as twitchy and aggressive as I had been. I still wasn't a hundred percent, I doubted I ever would be, but I wasn't quite so messed up. Taren and Lera were good for me, I could see that now, and having a stable job was doing wonders for my stress, though it came with its own problems.

I settled on the truth, as I usually did. "I didn't sleep well last night, but other than that I'm fine."

"O-Oh." He looked down at his brush and nodded. "That's g-good."

We both went back to brushing. The silence felt awkward, and I combed through my brain for a way to break it. I remembered that Hyrn had gone to one of the free classes offered to employees. I had no idea how good the classes were, but free was free. They had weapons training, biotic classes, even demolitions training, which Hyrn had attended.

Well, that was as good a way as any, and I was honestly curious. "How did that class go, the one you went to earlier?"

Hyrn jerked a little in surprise but quickly answered. "I-It was a-alright, I g-guess. I-Inform-mative. The t-teacher knew a l-lot."

That sounds promising. "Well that's good. I'm signed up for a weapons class tomorrow and a technical one the day after." I made a humming noise as though something had just occurred to me, when in truth I had the thought I was about to verbalize two days ago. "Maybe you should sign up for a weapon class too. Learn how to use that sniper rifle you got."

The salarian next to me didn't respond immediately. "…m-maybe. I might." His voice was soft with some unidentifiable emotion. I didn't over examine it.

I just wanted him to be able to protect himself. I wasn't entirely sure why, though I suspected it had something to do with how much he reminded me of myself sometimes, but I'd grown to like Hyrn a bit. And oddly enough, if I wasn't horribly misunderstanding it seemed like he was starting to see me as a friend.

I had so few of those that I was eager to gain another.

December 6th

10:54 OST

Guard duty was, by far, both the easiest and most aggravating job we'd gotten. We were told to stand watch in front of the "visitor's entrance" that we had first come through and be on the lookout for suspicious behavior. I had seen another team doing the same thing that first day, and they had been too busy talking amongst themselves to even notice me as I had approached. I got the feeling that we'd gotten this post because it was the hardest to fuck up. No one was going to assault the Blue Sun's base head on except the other merc groups, and if they had invaded the district then we already had some serious problems.

There was literally nothing for us to do except talk. This of course led to frustration.

Javern was a very opinionated person, and rather vocal. Normally I would have no issue with that, but when those opinions were generally either about my race or things I felt strongly about, it caused problems. I honestly couldn't help it, I could be very confrontational when things that mattered to me were questioned or slandered. Javern probably couldn't help it either; he was a product of his culture. I had no hard feelings or anything.

I just wished to god he would fall off the ledge over there and die.

We had been arguing for several minutes and had reached the point of outright yelling. Vilnius and Hyrn had quietly edged away from us, while Brek silently glared at me. Passersby shot us odd looks, but neither of us cared.

"The caste system is an integral part of batarian culture! You can't just remove the lower caste, the whole structure would fall apart!"

"You'd be better off! Every other race has outlawed slavery, and for good reason! It's an abomination!"

"No, what's an abomination is how you humans think you can tell everyone else how their society should work!"

"It's not just humanity! All of the Council races agree-"

"The Council rules don't matter, because batarians aren't part of the Council!"

"Only because they left!"

"Because your kind was pushing us out of our territory and the Council refused to do anything about it!"

He has a point. The Alliance was being too pushy.

I stopped and placed a hand on my helmet, sighing. "Okay, yeah, that wasn't right, we shouldn't have done that." Javern stared in surprise at me. "But slavery is and never will be okay."

That broke him out of shock. He scowled again. "There you go again, saying that everyone should abide by your rules! Why can't humans just accept that this is how we are?!"

"Because we're really not fond of having slavers attack our colonies and capture us. It's really not enjoyable and we'd prefer if it didn't happen at all." I deadpanned. He seriously did not understand. "How did you think we'd feel? How did you think we'd respond to seeing people butchered, tortured, rounded up like fucking cattle?"

This gave him pause, but soon he responded in an equally neutral tone. "Then Alliance should defend their colonies better. The strong dominate the weak, that's how the galaxy works. Maybe you're too new here to know that."

I groaned. "I am just so fucking done. I'm done with this conversation."

"Ha, so you're giving up?!"

"God, just… fuck you, four-eyes!"

"Ape-fucker!"

"Assface!"

It just degenerated from there.

14:23 OST

Being a group that made most if not all of its money in mercenary activities, it made sense that the Blue Suns would have a big and well-equipped firing range. There was room for over fifteen people to practice simultaneously, and a variety of targets for just about any sort of enemy type. Along the edge of the room were workbenches with various tools and computer interfaces for weapon modification, along with crates of specialized ammo-blocks for practice firing.

The instructor for the weapon class, a human guy who introduced himself as York, was obviously skilled with his rifle and a decent teacher, giving each person the attention they needed.

All of this barely helped. I was still hopeless with my rifle.

"-godmotherfuck- agh."

I hadn't even hit close to the target.

"No, you need to brace it against your shoulder." York tugged the rifle up higher on my chest so the butt of it was against my shoulder. It felt so damn weird, and I couldn't hold it there. He sighed. "Just work on that for a bit, okay? I'm going to go check on the rest."

I nodded, and the instructor went down the range to talk to another student. I refocused on the target and tried to brace the rifle on my shoulder. I fired three bursts, but only two of the shots clipped the target.

I started to swear a blue streak, but a voice from behind startled me. "You look like you're having trouble."

I whirled around and found Vilnius standing behind me, sniper rifle in hand. "What're you doing here? You don't need these classes."

"I just wanted to practice." He leaned to the right to look at my target. "But it seems like you're having a hard time."

"Yeah, well," I grumbled, "Not everyone got to have military training before this."

The turian seemed a little offended. "That's none of your business."

"And my performance is none of yours!" I snapped back. I immediately stopped and sighed. "Sorry, I just… Javern got me all wound up, and now I'm failing miserably at this. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"…well," he began cautiously, "if it would make you feel better, you seem to have far more technical expertise than I do. And you're learning how to handle a gun pretty well for a civilian."

I smiled. "Thanks. Most people would say I was learning well 'for a girl'".

His eyes went wide, and his mandibles lowered considerably. "You're female?"

…what. I…. what? He- how could- what?!

"…yeeesss. I would think that was fairly obvious." My voice was still even, but I couldn't shake the shock. I had been accused of a great many things before, but male was never one of them.

He sounded like he was in shock too. "I-I… I didn't know, I haven't known enough humans to tell the difference and I guess I just assumed…"

There was a sudden awkward silence that lasted for a long time, up until I remembered that the class had a limited timeframe and I had to get back to practice. "Yes, well, it shouldn't really matter, so I'm just… gonna get back to what I was doing."

Vilnius nodded and walked down to a target on the other side of the range with his sniper rifle. I looked back at my target and tried to aim properly this time.

December 7th

09:48 OST

The team, which after an enquiry to the sergeant was revealed to be team 36, was once again working in the maintenance bay. A new shipment of weapons had come in, and we had been assigned to the cataloging and sorting of its contents. Vilnius was given a crate of sniper rifles, Hyrn ended up with the pistols, and Javern was told to do the shotguns, leaving Brek and I to handle the assault rifles.

Brek had been alternating between glaring at me and ignoring my presence. I tried to ignore him in return, but it was difficult to ignore someone you had to cooperate with.

"Two more Mark IIs." I counted.

He grunted.

"Aaand a Mark V."

He grunted.

I stopped and looked at him. "You're capable of speaking in more than grunts. I remember our recruitment."

"I want you to shut up and die." His voice was utterly emotionless.

"…oookay then."

That wasn't terrifying at all.

13:39 OST

The rec room was just as loud and smelly as I had remembered it, with games, conversations, shows and who knows what else going on. The five of us were all seated at a table together, passing the time. Vilnius was cleaning his pistol, Hyrn was engrossed in a datapad, Javern was watching the people around us, Brek blankly stared at the table and I fiddled with the recently-hacked omni-tool on my right arm.

Things were still odd between us, but for the most part we were able to function as a team. I found myself often thinking of them as my team, even Javern who was frustrating as fuck and Brek who scared the shit out of me.

It must be that bond of brotherhood stuff that people say happens in the military. Despite knowing each other for only five days, we could just chill like this while waiting for another assignment. It was kinda nice.

The semi-pleasant atmosphere was broken when the sergeant came up to our table, carrying five datapads.

"I've got a contract for you."

AN: I'm sorry. I did it again. These last two weeks were really busy 'cause school started up again, but I still feel horrible about it.

Anywho. Here's Infodump Part 2: Time Lapse Edition. Hope you like it. Drop by the pairing poll if you haven't already. And please, please review. It not only makes me really happy, but it helps me figure out what you, my readers, want.

Toodles, noodles.